PC hang during scheduled recording

[pchan]

Hi

I have a dedicated PC to record and playback TV programs.

System:
OS - WinXp Pro SP2
Motherboard - Chaintech 7NIF2 with TV out
RAM - 512MB
TV Card - Hauppauge WinTV-PCI FM
Recording software - ShowShifter 3.11

Problem : I put the PC on standby mode and it will wake-up the record the scheduled program and go back to standby mode. But now, the PC would crash at the end of the scheduled recording. Once crashed, both the hard disk and power LEDs were ON. Pressing the power button will not shutdown the PC. I have to off the main switch and reboot.

So far, I have re-installed ShowShifter, Divx codec, sound and video drivers. These didn't fix the problem.

Any fix suggestion will be very much appreciated.

Should I just forget about the PC recorder and get a DVD recorder ?

[SaSi]

Should I just forget about the PC recorder and get a DVD recorder ?

That is always an option, but we are not here to quit on such trivial obstacles, are we?

I will take a wild guess and relate your problem to a similar scenario when a PC would wake up and do something then suspend again. Nothing to do with capturing but transmit data over a VPN to a host during the night.

The PC would either wake up properly and do the job then hung up or would crash some application when brought out of suspend.

After some investigation (did the same task with another machine succesfully) we discovered that the reason was related to the power managemnt settings in the bios and the ACPI i/f in the OS. (We were using Windows 2K at that time but I trust XP is similar).

I understand this is not a direct solution, but I would look into the following:

1. Change any power management settings in the BIOS - start with reset to defaults first.

2. Would install the chipset drivers for the motherboard - latest version

I am not familiar with showshifter so let me ask a question: How do you bring the PC out of standby - using showshifter?

Also, how do you suspend again? Does showshifter allow a "grace" period once recording is done? Could it be that recording time is up, showshifter is not ready to close but the OS kicks in a suspend command?

[pfh]

Good point SaSi, ACPI never has been implemented to any degree of reliabilty. I never did like using sleep, suspend, hibernate modes for this reason. My stuff is either on all time or off.

[pchan]

Thanks SaSi and pfh,

It's standalone PC (no network) and video out to TV. ShowShifter will wake up the PC from S3 standby mode and record the TV program. Once done, ShowShifter will exit. PC will go on S3 standy mode after idling for 1 minute. I setup the "go to" S3 standby mode in the BIOS.

Occasionally, it would fail to wake-up and miss the recording. I tolarated that and even my wife's nagging for missing her favourite soaps.

Then... lately.. the sound went missing half way in the recorded video. So I figured the on-board soundc chip might be the problem and I added in a Creative Live soundcard. Now, all hell break lose.

I remove the Creative sound card and reintall all the drivers and ShowShifter. Still cannot fix the problem.

[pfh]

Yeah, you found out the main problem with ACPI. It requires a specific level of compliance across ALL hardware to work correctly. Unfortunatley manufacturers are not required to build hardware that follows these specifications. Add to the mix the various software coding and you end up with ACPI that can't be implimented very well, if at all.

On another note, I use a "live" soundcard but I don't use most of the Creative extra software junk. Just the drivers. Creative bloated it's software over the years to where it got way too intrusive for my tastes.

[SaSi]

I have a PC at work that just won't go to stand by or hibernate because the driver of the LAN board doesn't allow it to. (At least that's what Windows 2000 says...).

On the other hand, I use a brand new Fujitsu laptop that I barely shut down. I Just close the lid and it suspends and hibernates after a few minutes. It never crashes upon resuming.

My older laptop (again a Fujitsu but PII/333) would suspend and resume all-right, but when I had two PCMCIA boards inserted it would cause all kinds of problems upon resume. From not being able to identify the PCMCIA boards to being unable to initialize the cardbus interface.

It may be that the Creative drivers installed cause the problem you have.

It could be that a fresh re-installation of the OS will fix the problem. This is not something to do just for the fun of it, so you may want to live with the problem and leave the machine on at all times.

[pchan]

Hi SaSi,
"trivial obstacles" you say... it's kind of Mount Everest to me. My wife wanted a new VCR when the old one started giving problems. Then I was thinking DVD recorder is a better option but way above my budget at that time. Being a PC freak, I set-up a PC at half the price just for recording TV programs. It was OK with minor problems. But recenyly, it started to have sound problem. Then I bought a Creative soundcard to fix audio issue. It became worse and started to crash. I started removing the soundcard, and reinstalled the Showshifter, on-board Cmedia and nVidia drivers. The crashing and fail-to-wakeup problems are still there. I have given up fixing it... then for the past 2 days... that darn PC is working again. I am begining to believe that there is a little devil inside...just kidding

This PC is on S3 standby mode 24hrs a day and 7days a week. We have weekly schedule recording. It records TV soaps and my kids' cartoon.

I did reformat the hard drive about 9 months... but the problem keep coming back. The next time it starts to crack.. I am going to get a DVD recorder. 8) 8) 8) Of course, I blow my budget by betting a PC recorder.

[SaSi]

Once you climb mount Everest a few times the excercice will appear trivial and perhaps even boring.

I also wanted to get a replacement for my VHS VCR on the lines of digital recorder. I considered a HD/DVD set-top recorder as a good candidate, however the quality I get recording TV broadcasts and camcorder footage on my main PC via a Hauppauge WinTV/USB made me strongly consider a PC recorder. I feel more comfortable with a PC, it costs more or less the same and the potential is ultra-higher.

So, I bought myself a ready-built high Quality Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo C. The h/w quality is beyond criticism. It also works ( ) . It also started a huge headache for me.

I simply cannot get it to produce acceptable picture quality on my rather old 21" CRT Tv. The fact that any VHS VCR or DVD player produces almost crisp image through the composite connector should prove that a good composite source should produce good results.

I have connected the S-Video output of the HTPC to the TV (the TV has S-Video input), connected the RGB output via a special SCART connetor and also tried the composite video out from the PC to the TV.
The results are simply Crap. The best I get is very high contrast with bad saturation (like high luminance and low chrominance). The worst I get is the TV to consider the feed as NTSC (although it is PAL)

Not to highjack your thread with my problem. Just to show you that perhaps your problem (compared to other alternatives) is quite trivial.

[pchan]

Hi SaSi,
Not at all. Thanks for sharing.

My wife schedule 2 recording today and each for 1 hr. The first recording was OK and the 2nd recording with not OK as the PC crashed at the end of the recording. Showshift is not able to play the 2nd recording but Media Player Classic can.

I begin to suspect that the power supply unit may be the culprit to this problem.

[jakol]

hi,
maybe the program (showshifter itself is buggy) just a thought.
Ive been recording TV programs on my Windows MCE 2005 with no single crash, always wakes up on time to record.

edit: you could try WinDVD Hometheater.

[SaSi]

Programs can have bugs. I remember when I was scared to press stop when recording through the Pinacle PCTV because that would often crash the application and sometimes the last hour or so of the recording was unusable. I had solved this by allowing the recording to continue through the night until the next morning - to give slack. But then I have the Hard disk space to afford it.

Try other programs for recording or check for a newer version could be a solution. I would not immediately suspect the PSU.

[pchan]

Both of your are right. Software maybe buggy and PSU is not the issue. I throw in a new PSU and the problem still happen. It crashed with both power and HD LED on. I am suspecting that ShowShifter and RealAlternative don't mix well.